


one for sorrow

by kurgaya



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst, Background Namikaze Minato/Uzumaki Kushina, Blood, Drabble, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 02:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15921040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurgaya/pseuds/kurgaya
Summary: Kakashi's five years old and he knows what drives a man to suicide, what fills a heart with shame.[Post Sakumo's suicide. Minato worries. Kushina is quiet. Also a wingfic because why tf not].





	one for sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> **Note 1** : Here Minato takes Kakashi under his wing a little earlier than canon. So here, Minato is trying his best to be a mature, recently promoted during a time of war (yikes) 15 year old. He's been Kakashi's sensei for only a few months.
> 
>  **Note 2** : Written for [kakashi week 2018](https://kakashifest.tumblr.com/post/177522186362/kakashi-week-is-almost-here). Prompt was "wings".
> 
>  **Warnings** : Canonical character suicide. This fic deals with the immediate aftermath.

Some hours after finding his father lying dead, Kakashi tucks himself into a chair at the hospital. It’s a cold, bright red thing made of plastic, and it’s attached to a whole line of equally cold and red chairs by a bar of metal under the seat. The back of the chair is low enough for an average man to sit comfortably with his wings, but Kakashi is a little small for that. He doesn’t try. Instead, he lets them drape where they will, weighed down by the never-ending hours of the night.

People move around him. Kakashi’s forehead-protector gradually slips down until it’s a ring around his neck. A nurse shift changes. An emergency walks in, her left arm covered in blood. Kakashi stares at nothing and wonders what he’ll say to Minato in the morning. Personally breaking the news to him must be the right thing to do. Minato genuinely seemed to like Sakumo, something that Kakashi is still trying to wrap his head around. People don’t _like_ his father. _Kakashi_ isn’t even sure he likes his father after finding him with a blade in his stomach.

Kakashi presses his forehead to his knees. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, but it’s been some time since the nurses told him to wait. Perhaps they’ve forgotten him. He sighs and contemplates leaving, thinks about heading back to… somewhere… but Minato stumbling out of a body flicker and scattering leaves across the lobby makes the decision for him.

“ _Kakashi_. Gods.”

Kakashi glances up over his knees. Minato’s a mess. His bed-head hair sticks out like golden rays from a sun, and his fringe looks unusually shaggy without his forehead-protector to tame it in place. He seems to have thrown on his flak jacket - and little else - in a hurry, for it sits lopsided across his shoulders, the zip undone to reveal the sleeping yukata underneath. A little fox charm hangs from the keys between his fingers (a gift from Kushina, Kakashi knows), so at least Minato locked up before body-flickering halfway across the city in the darkest hours of the morning.

And yet, even disheveled and half-asleep, Minato cuts a fine figure with his wings. Speckled grey-brown like rapid strokes of a brush, his wings are nearly as recognisable as his hair. Although they are white on the underside, forever framing Minato against a brilliant light, the feathers on the other side are a muted, uniform grey. They are half-open now as though they have fallen that way, the bitter wind of the evening pushing them apart as Minato rushed across Konoha. The few nurses and civilians milling around offer him a wide berth, but Minato doesn’t need to spread his wings to do that. Simply standing next to Kakashi achieves the same result, especially recently, as the city dragged his father’s name through the mud, and especially tonight.

Minato crouches down. His hand hovers over Kakashi’s leg but never touches. The keys in his grasp jingle as he struggles for something to say. One of the nurses must have summoned him and broken the news. He must’ve been sleeping, perhaps he was even staying with Kushina. There’s hardly any reason for him to be here. Kakashi doesn’t need someone to _collect him_ , and he certainly doesn’t need Minato’s face twisting in grief.

“I just heard what happened,” Minato says, although that’s a moot point. He tracks his eyes over Kakashi’s clothes, a familiar check for injuries. His jaw twitches at the dark blood on Kakashi’s sleeves and trousers, and then the grind of his teeth at the state of Kakashi’s wings is a clack of thunder in the hush of the hospital lobby. Minato reaches up to the edge of one soggy, bloodied wing but abandons that motions too, sighing out through his nose. “They couldn’t’ve offered you some clothes?”

Kakashi’s wings sag over the waiting room chair. Black and white, similar to his father’s. Only, Sakumo's had been huge, the largest that Kakashi has ever seen. They were more alike Minato’s than Kakashi’s in patterning, black on the top and white on the underside. Kakashi’s are black and white all over, as though the feathers couldn’t quite decide. The blue sheen to his wings is scarlet now, and blood smears over the armrests and floor. As Kakashi shrugs, the blood shrugs too.

“You must be freezing,” Minato continues, shrugging out of his jacket. “ _I’m_ freezing. You’re coming back to mine tonight, okay? We can deal with everything in the morning - _I’ll_ deal with everything in the morning. How long have you even been sitting here?”

Kakashi glowers at the jacket. “Put that back on.”

“Nu-uh, no can do.”

“You’re dressed for bed.”

“And _you’re_ dressed for - training,” Minato tries, rolling his eyes at himself. He squeezes back into the jacket, shaking a few loose leaves from his wings. “At least tuck your wings in. You’ve not hurt them, have you?”

“Doing what? CPR?” Kakashi drawls. The idea is laughable but Minato doesn’t laugh. In fact, it’s almost as laughable as performing CPR on a man who’s been dead for the better part of an afternoon, but even Kakashi can’t laugh about that.

Minato’s reply is stiff. “I’ll take that as a no. Come on, up you get.” _Or I’ll carry you_ , is left unsaid.

Kakashi uncurls. His wings drag over the chair as he rises. A couple of feathers fall loose, others sticking to the blood on the floor. He blinks at them without seeing, confused almost, in a hospital daze, and Minato makes a sound akin to pain. Kakashi blinks up at him too.

“I don’t want to get blood on your yukata,” he says.

Minato’s wings twitch. He holds out a hand, which Kakashi takes, and then pulls Kakashi closer anyway. “Don’t worry about it,” he manages, before body-flickering them away.

Konoha barely stirs as they reappear at Minato’s doorstep. Light bleeds out of the kitchen window like an early dawn. A cat startles from the rooftops and chases another down the street. The fox charm on Minato’s keys looks like it's smiling as he clicks it into the door. Kakashi can't imagine smiling about anything ever again.

Minato’s apartment is a reasonable size, inherited from his parents before their deaths out in the field. Kakashi has only been inside a handful of times, but more often than not, Kushina is there haunting the living room with her bad manners and bad mouth, and her even more questionable taste in food. He's not quite sure if she and Minato are dating, or if they're just dancing around the issue like the village danced around Kakashi's father, afraid to say anything, afraid to act. Kakashi tends only to converse with Kushina when necessary, shy around her boisterous energy and wary of her fiery lungs. She could shout the Hokage mountain down if she wanted. He doesn't doubt that Minato would be there to charm her out of trouble for it, too.

Kakashi toes his shoes off at the door. Kushina doesn’t yell when he slips past the kitchen. She simply lifts her head over a cup of coffee and then sighs at him with the most terrible expression, wetting her eyes and her lips with grief. His wings are nearly as red as hers. Kushina ruffles her feathers, a precursor to anger, and hot chakra simmers under her skin. She might break that mug any second. She might break it by throwing it against the wall.

Kakashi doesn’t know what to say. Minato is a statue at his back, and his falcon wings cast them both into shade. The light is dim in the kitchen, but not dim enough to hide Kakashi’s disarray. He can feel Minato and Kushina having a conversation over his head. He squirms, uncomfortable now. That his wings have stopped dripping blood is a small mercy. It's going to take a while to clean them, and for the first time, Kakashi wishes they were completely black rather than a magpie’s black and white.

“I haven't got much in the way of clothes for you,” Minato admits, touching Kakashi's shoulder. The touch is gentle, frightened almost: _wow you're small_ , Minato had said the day they met, and Kakashi wonders what he's thinking now. “You might have to make do with an old shirt.”

Kakashi doesn't care about his clothing right now. He just wants to shower, and preen, and put all of the blood back into his father's abdomen. He accepts a towel and the careful nudge from the room, and though he tries not to notice, he accepts that Minato's sorrow is inevitable as it follows him down the hall.

“We'll fetch some of your stuff tomorrow,” Kushina says after Kakashi returns from the shower, pressing a mug of tea into his hands. Minato yawns at the table beside her, stirring what may as well be a whole bowl of sugar into a cup of coffee. One of her wings is wrapped around him like a bright red blanket.

“What for? I'm only staying tonight,” Kakashi reasons. He used to sit under his father's wings like that, hugging the curtain of white feathers around himself like a cape. He hardly remembers his mother, but he thinks her wings were a beautiful, shimmering blue.

“I doubt that, knowing Minato,” Kushina replies. She winks at her probably-boyfriend, but if she was hoping Minato to blush, then she doesn't get her wish.

“Kakashi… can make his own decisions,” Minato says slowly, still stirring the coffee.

Kushina presses her lips together. Her wing quivers, smacking him against the back of his head. Minato _oofs_ without any real pain, but even that doesn't bring a smile to his lips.

“He's _five_ ,” Kushina says, glancing at Kakashi to add, “No offence, kiddo. You're a bright spark, but a teeny one.”

Kakashi bristles.

Minato slouches his head into his hand. “And he's a genin.”

“Who you've _basically adopted_ , come on.”

“He might not - I mean - you're okay with staying here tonight, aren't you Kakashi?”

Kakashi sips his tea. It's sweeter than he expects and pleasantly warm. Minato's chakra is the same, like a summer breeze carrying sunlight over the town. He has only ever felt safe with Minato, especially as most of the village regard him and Sakumo with scorn. He imagines even death won't change that.

“Can I summon my dogs?”

“Sure.”

“Then I'll stay tonight.”

Kushina opens her mouth to say something, but Minato stroking a hand down her feathers changes her mind.

“Bedtime then,” Minato chimes. He takes a swig of coffee, suggesting that he, at least, will be staying awake. “You all right sleeping in my room?”

“I can sleep -”

“Nope. My room. Chop chop. Kushina - can you get the other blankets?”

Kakashi considers pouring the tea over Minato’s head, but that would be mean. And while Kakashi tries hard to be exactly what the village wants of him, at least he isn't petty - at least he isn't cruel.

(Five years old and he knows what drives a man to suicide, what fills a heart with shame).

“I'd do it,” Kushina whispers, winking as she walks past.

Kakashi bites his thumb instead of trying for a smile. Two little dogs appear in a puff of smoke, one far smaller than the other. Pakkun cranes his wrinkly head around their surroundings and then sighs, and Bisuke starts to whine. Kakashi won't ever admit that his bottom lips wobbles at the sound.

“We're glad you're safe, kid,” Pakkun says, ducking under Kakashi's wings to jump up into his lap. Bisuke follows suit, and Kakashi has to hold them lest they both tumble off. “Your dad's contract -”

 _Suicide_ , he sees Minato mouth.

“Ah shit,” Pakkun breathes. “Oh, pup.”

Kakashi holds his dogs a little closer. Bisuke licks his hand.

“Are we having hugs?” Kushina asks, appearing again. She spreads her arms wide, spreading her wings too. “Can I have one?”

“And me?” Bisuke asks.

“Minato’ll have one as well,” Kushina adds, swooping down to envelope them all, dogs, teacups, and the back of Kakashi's chair too.

**Author's Note:**

> Kakashi - eurasian magpie  
> Sakumo - albatross  
> Kakashi's mother - common kingfisher  
> Minato - peregrine falcon  
> Kushina - scarlet ibis


End file.
